Exploring Journals as a Creative Tools.

A Good Fountain Pen Ink for Your Moleskine

If you have been looking for a fountain pen ink to use in your Moleskine journal, Private Reserve Ebony Blue received a thumbs up in a review at Inkyjournal . Woodworker put the ink through its paces and the results were impressive. For more information and some great reviews, see the Inkyjournal blog at: www.inkyjournal.blogspot.com

Moleskine friendly:
I give this ink a thumbs up for Moleskine-friendly ink. You can use the other site of the page without making a mess of it. I like the greenish-blue color with the creamy pages of the Moleskine paper. I leave this ink some time in this Lamy 2000 fountainpen.

8 Responses

I find it to be extremely difficult to endorse any fountain pen ink to be used in a Moleskine with the exception of Noodler’s Bulletproof Black- because it’s designed to be used on lower quality paper. I’ve found that you can try a particular ink on the paper of one Moleskine and it works fine but then use it in another Moleskine & it bleeds & feathers like crazy. Once it a while this will even happen from page to page in the same book!

While Moleskine journals have a wonderful form factor, the bottom line is that they simply aren’t in the market to produce a journal that utilizes a higher quality paper because it would drive their costs up – and then they wouldn’t have the same kind of marketing budget that allows them to be so visible in the marketplace.

I started using fountain pens because they allow me to write with very little effort. once I found that all of my inks were bleeding in my beloved Moleskine, I figured it out that it wasn’t the inks but the paper. These days, I search for papers that are made with a higher clay content that helps to resist ink – (but yes, inks do take longer to dry on them) so bleeding, feathering & see-through is no longer an option.

The best papers I’ve found are the French made Clairefontaine & Rhodia papers. The new Rhodia Webnotebook is very similar in design to the Moleskine and while it costs a few dollars more, it’s the higher quality paper that I’ve been searching for.

Thank you for your thorough comment! I agree, Moleskine’s generally aren’t the best choice for most fountain pens, but some combinations are workable although may not be ideal for everyone. It all depends on what is more important to you, the notebook or the pen. I have been using my Tombow fountain pen which has a Tombow cartridge with no bleedthrough on my Moleskine notebook for a while now. Once I finish this notebook and start another, I know this may change, but for now it is working.

There are other, more reliable notebooks for using with a fountain pen, such as the Rhodia Web Notebook and the Ciak journal, but some folks are die hard Moleskine users. If I can offer suggestions for inks or pens that might work for them, they may be able to enjoy their Moleskine notebooks in addition to their fountain pen.

I’ve been in search of the perfect black ink for my Moleskine. I have tested ten so far and while Noodlers Bulletproof Black is the blackest and excellent quality (interestingly all the others are shades of black and another color) there are several others I like and do quite well in my Moleskine. The pen I use and test with is a Sailor 1911 with an Extra Fine nib. Now, I am on my fifth Moleskine and maybe I’ve been lucky, but I have yet to experience bleed through that at all gets in the way of using both sides of the page. Yes, I do notice feathering, and I readily admit the paper quality leaves much to be desired. I could see upgrading to something better, like the Rhodia mentioned above, but seriously I could also stay with Moleskine just because it’s good enough, for me.

Thank you for sharing your experience with the inks. It is interesting that most of the inks you have had success with are shades of black and another color. What are the other inks that you found acceptable in your Moleskine?